


i'm standing on the last road for today

by Anonymous



Category: SEVENTEEN (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - College/University, Light Angst, M/M, Mpreg, Pregnancy, and the raging hormones are only partially responsible, besides on the screen, but joshua is still in cali, even though he doesn't actually appear woops, in that jihoon is still signed with pledis, jihoon is super important, joshua gets emotional a lot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-05
Updated: 2018-09-05
Packaged: 2019-07-07 02:55:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,012
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15899469
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/
Summary: Placing a cracker in his mouth, he scrolls down the playlists, eyes catching on one of the videos listed in the Recently Uploaded section. A lump blooms in his throat, breath hitching as he presses play on the video entitled 우지 - Simple.Serene, melodic piano notes grace his ears while a young man greets the screen and begins crooning lyrics about the want for happiness in a repetitious life where nothing comes easy.“Thank God,” Joshua breathes, throat clogged with a mixture of emotions, tears inking his long lashes. Relief floods through him, a tingling, aching awe left in its wake. A weight lifts from him that had been looming since he’d made the most significant, heavy decision of his life.





	i'm standing on the last road for today

Sprite was a hard no too, it appears. Maybe there’s too much sugar? Too much carbonation? Though he was able to drink that liter of coke earlier that day just fine...

The why doesn’t really matter and Joshua doesn’t really dwell much on it when his head is bent over the toilet, green liquid splashing against the porcelain. Stomach bile. Not a surprise, considering he’d been throwing up four hours earlier, right before bed, and he’d emptied out the remaining contents from dinner. He had hoped (in vein) that the Sprite would settle his stomach in lieu of 7-Up. He's in desperate need of a trip to the grocery store, but it’s hard to find both the time and the energy. 

After some concerted effort getting back up onto his feet, Joshua sloshes around some tasteless, alcohol-free mouthwash, spits it out into the sink and wipes his mouth with a clean towel. These days, even brushing his teeth could trigger his gag reflex and he only performs the task once in the morning and once at night. Joshua opens up his medicine cabinet, briefly considering the anti-sickness tablets that his General Physician had prescribed him after his last visit, when he’d complained about the constant nausea that continues to linger even when Joshua is a couple weeks into his third trimester. 

He hasn’t taken any yet, and he decides, again, that he would rather fight the vicious streaks of nausea than chance harming his baby’s development. 

“Ten more weeks,” he reminds himself, “Just ten more weeks.” He could hold out for that much longer. For his baby’s sake. 

Joshua worries, not for the first time, that the constant complications with his pregnancy may be some kind of cosmic punishment. The thought does not linger long, however, and he chides his overstressed, exhausted brain for the fleeting cynicism as he walks into the kitchen to grab a water bottle and saltine crackers. 

This baby is a gift. He’s never doubted that. He knows that at the ripe age of nineteen, he’s considered too young by many to be having a child. He knows that he’s got a great deal of maturing to go through in order to provide his baby with their best chance. He knows that their best chance involves continuing through university and earning his business degree. He knows that to provide his baby with security, he cannot afford to give in to his more whimsical dreams of being a singer, of performing. 

He settles instead for singing to his unborn child every night, knowing that once the baby is here in his arms, singing lullabies will continue to be a routine. His baby may be his only audience, but Joshua has decided that is all that he needs. 

When he discovered that he was pregnant, Joshua knew that he had options and he had weighed each of them before making his choice. He was going to have this baby and raise them to the best of his ability. He put faith in himself and God that he was making the right decision. 

It may not be an easy path, but it is the one that Joshua chose to walk and so far, he did not have regrets. Despite his stomach, feet, and face ballooning. Despite the constant nausea, heartburn, and need to pee. Despite how easily exhausted he was, prone to falling asleep at any given moment, a simple walk around the block leaving him short of breath. Despite all of the aches and pains, Joshua does not wish he had made a different decision. 

He settles into the rocking chair in the living room, hiking up his legs on the footstool. He sets down his water and crackers to rub at the gnarly, bulging varicose veins beneath his knees, the crisscrossed design rippling all the way down the underside of his calves. Frowning at the unsightly, uncomfortable blue bumps, he huffs and pops open the cap of his water bottle. 

Joshua doesn’t consider himself terribly vain, but pregnancy is taking a costly toll on his body, and as he pulls up YouTube on his Apple TV, he becomes increasingly conscious of the fact that he doesn’t look like the fresh-faced idols that populate his Recommended videos playlist. How did he ever once think that he could possibly have what it took?

The baby starts tumbling around and Joshua lifts up his shirt. “Ah, did I wake you up, Kiwi? Hm?” He stretches his hand across the expanse of his swollen stomach. “Daddy’s sorry.” He rubs affectionately at his belly before turning his attention back to the screen. He needs to brighten up his mood. He knows all too well that stress and heightened anxiety can affect little Kiwi, and he refuses to negatively impact this baby before they are even born. 

Placing a cracker in his mouth, he scrolls down the playlists, eyes catching on one of the videos listed in the Recently Uploaded section. A lump blooms in his throat, breath hitching as he presses play on the video entitled 우지 - Simple. 

Serene, melodic piano notes grace his ears while a young man greets the screen and begins crooning lyrics about the want for happiness in a repetitious life where nothing comes easy. 

“Thank God,” Joshua breathes, throat clogged with a mixture of emotions, tears inking his long lashes. Relief floods through him, a tingling, aching awe left in its wake. A weight lifts from him that had been looming since he’d made the most significant, heavy decision of his life. 

He folds his hands in a prayer of overwhelming gratitude that the pieces properly fell into place like he had been hoping. 

He’s more confident in that moment that he made the right choice. As he watches the man passionately strum a guitar, he cups his stomach once more and swallows thickly. Kiwi seems to have calmed significantly, kicks less frequent and piercing. 

“The lyrics are amazing, aren’t they?” Joshua comments to the empty room, mesmerized, idly tracing circles around his bump. “I bet this whole song is his creation.” Giddiness hums through Joshua’s brittle, tired bones and his chest balloons with pride. He checks the view count, noting that it’s nothing to sneeze at. Especially for a rookie artist. Jihoon deserves this. He deserved all the success in the world.

This is the end result that Joshua wanted to see, even if he is just a bystander. Even if he can only watch from afar, an ocean away. 

The music video comes to an end and Joshua backs out on the screen, letting the silence eclipse the space around him. His gaze is glued on the thumbnail. Jihoon has pink hair now. The colors suits him. 

He’s caught up in the moment, beaming despite the tears that finally break loose, cascading down his cheeks onto his bare stomach as he bends to whisper. “I know you can’t see him, but you can hear him, can’t you? Lee Jihoon. Woozi. That strong, angelic voice? Don’t let that fool you, though. He can be extremely sharp-tongued, too, when he wants to be. But the heart of him is soft, y’know. Even if he’s not the best at showing it, he’s incredibly sweet. He’s shy, introverted. Expresses himself best with music. That’s his passion, and he pours all that he has into it.” He lovingly strokes the hardened bulge that houses his child, keeps them safe and sheltered as they grow and grow.

“We understood each other on that level.” He recalls fondly all of the long hours spent in the studio. Joshua had had no right to be there, really, since he was just a student who had been fortunate enough to be taking a tour of SubKulture Entertainment with his class. He likes to think that it was fate, that it was all part of God’s plan that he visited the same day that the selected K-Pop trainees arrived to begin filming for an upcoming reality production. That he ran into a lost trainee when he’d deviated from the rest of his class to take a pitstop at the restroom. He vividly remembers the frazzled expression on Jihoon’s face as he stumbled over his English, the relief that replaced it when Joshua replied to him in Korean. They hit it off almost immediately, finding common ground not only in a shared language but in a shared zeal for music. 

“And that’s...that’s why I couldn’t take music away from him.” Joshua’s tired and loose-lipped, drunk on exhaustion and falling headlong into nostalgia, tears leaking as freely as the truth that he had yet to vocalize to anyone. “He was well on his way to stardom, and for me, music was still a passion hobby.” 

He lists off all the familiar reasons that he went over time and time again months ago, during the sleepless nights where he couldn’t stop mulling over any and every possible avenue and all the obstacles that stood in each path. “He hadn’t graduated from high school yet. He was here temporarily...he couldn’t have just stayed. It couldn’t be that simple.” 

How ironic that that was the very title of Jihoon’s debut song. That, oceans apart, at the heart of them, they share the same desire: for happiness to be simple, for it to be attainable, not some seemingly lofty notion. 

“He couldn’t break his contract. And him being an idol and a…” Joshua’s throats close around the words and he swallows them, tucks them back in the corridor where he keeps all of his secrets. “It just wasn’t possible.” 

His doctor had officially declared his pregnancy high risk during his last appointment. The doctor attributed the classification to Joshua’s increasingly high blood pressure. He was told to do what he could to remove and regulate the stresses in his life. Joshua had dropped out of his classes for the semester, was eating vegetables with every meal, and tried to do yoga to the best of his ability. 

The doctor had also suggested talking to someone — a friend, a family member, a partner — about what’s troubling him. 

He doesn’t want to bother his friends. They’re busy focusing on their studies and enjoying college life, and he does not blame them. His father’s standoffish by nature. His mother is supportive, wonderful, and he seeks her advice and assurances when doubts plague him about whether or not he can be a good parent. She lets him whine about how hard his pregnancy is and comforts him when he falls prey to his hormones, whether what upset him was something trivial like a broken plate that he could not pick up with his round belly or something more weighted like the uncertainty about being able to properly provide and care for his baby when they got here. 

She always helps him feel better, but she cannot help with this. She knows enough to have an idea of what the root of his stress is, but she cannot help with this. 

She cannot help him accept that he does not have a partner in this journey to parenthood and that it’s of his own volition. He had thought it was the right decision, he still feels it’s the right decision but that does not make it any less difficult. 

There’s no point in continuing to dwell on the slew of reasons that led him to his decision. It’s done. Over. He needs to focus solely on the future. 

Yet that’s easier said than done when he physically carries a piece of his past with him. He caresses his bump, decides to continue to craft the bedtime story for Kiwi, finish what he started. If anyone deserves to hear it, it’s his baby. “This will be the only time I tell you this. I don’t know yet what exactly I’ll tell you when you’re older, when you start asking questions about your other father. But I…” Joshua wipes at his tears, lips wobbling upward forcibly. “I know for sure that I want you to know that it’s not your or his fault that he’s not around.” The baby starts moving again with a swift kick to Joshua’s ribs. Or maybe it was his kidneys. Biology was not his best subject. 

Joshua winces, laughs. “Yeah, you got it. It’s my fault. He doesn’t know about you.”

Joshua had ensured that there was no way of Jihoon finding out, either. Jihoon’s crushed face had almost made him waver, but he had stuck his ground and insisted that they have no contact. A clean cut was better, he had said, so that they both could move on and not hang on to something that they could not keep. Jihoon was going to debut in Korea and Joshua was going to continue university in America. 

There had been a time, before Joshua found out he was pregnant, that the two of them had allowed themselves to concoct a far-fetched scenario that Joshua had what it took to be an idol, too. Multiple K-Pop auditions were held in Los Angeles, plenty of scouts were on the lookout for talent. They had actually believed that it could happen. 

What a fantasy. 

At least Jihoon had made it. 

“Don’t feel bad for me though,” Joshua rushes to say, as if the baby can hear his thoughts. As if Kiwi is cognizant enough to understand the words that he vocalizes, either. “I don’t have any regrets.” 

Joshua sniffles, tries to put his composure back together. He musters a smile that has a good measure of gusto. “Music’s my first love. Much like it is Jihoon’s, too. And it was that love that led us to each other. He’s my second love, the first person I ever truly fell in love with. Neither he nor music is my most significant love, though, and that’s...that’s why I found the strength to let go of both of them.” He curls, bends down to embrace his stomach. It’s the best he can do until his baby is here, in his arms. “You, my precious Kiwi, are my third, greatest love. My forever love.” That would never change. Joshua found that other parents weren’t stretching the truth when they said that love for one’s child was infinite, immeasurable. 

“Music will always have a special place in my heart because it was the start of everything.” He could continue to show his love for music in other ways, one day. He could join a choir, maybe, continue to strum his guitar at family functions. He would craft lyrics, too, when the muse struck him, and croon them to his baby. The passion would not die. 

As for Jihoon, well, he supposes that there will undoubtedly be times where he looks at his child and sees traces of Jihoon. Because Joshua will always love his child, — their child — Joshua will always love Jihoon, in a way. 

It’s not as if he fell out of love with Jihoon. That feat may be impossible. No, instead he will support him from afar, watch his music career grow, and Joshua will not be bitter. 

He will be glad. 

“Jihoon is the reason I have you, and I’m grateful. I’m happy that I loved him, that we loved each other. Our time together may have been short, but it was wonderful. The best.” The tears that well up this time are ones that are glazed with fondness, accompanied by a bittersweet pang in his heart. All the memories meld together in a wave that threatens to drown him. 

A particularly happy memory rises to the surface. Finally managing to pry Jihoon from his studio for a day, Joshua surprised him one afternoon with a trip to Universal Studios Marvel. He had never seen Jihoon so excited, overjoyed. The fanboy in Jihoon was intense and Joshua had loved every moment of it, loved drinking in every reaction of Jihoon’s.

If nothing else, Joshua hopes that their baby has Jihoon’s laugh. The one he had when he was genuinely radiant, hands clapping, eyes clenched shut and mouth open wide in a guffaw. 

His camera roll was still filled with captured scenes from that day. He had spent the day snapping like crazy, wanting to immortalize the entire occasion. 

He hasn’t had the heart to delete any pictures or videos. He plans to, one day, when he has them all stored on a USB that he can file away in the box that he keeps hidden in his drawer with the rest of the trinkets of his and Jihoon’s relationship that remain. 

“I never could have suspected that I would have a love like that.” He turns his head, resting his ear against his stomach as he massages the patch of skin where he feels the baby flipping around and stretching, pads of his fingers kneading the muscle. The motions sooth them both, tension leaking from Joshua’s body. “And you were a surprise, too. A blessing.” 

His doctor was right. Voicing his troubles did help alleviate his stress.

He’s starting to have perspective. Joshua’s eyes are puffy and red and he’s going to be a sore sight tomorrow, but he’s beginning to see things more clearly again. 

He feels marginally better, knowing that Jihoon’s well on his way to success. 

The road Joshua is walking is not going to come without its fair share of hurdles and obstacles. He’ll have to find the strength to jump over whatever came his way. 

He lifts his head. To the left of his bellybutton, his baby kicks, pressed close enough that Joshua can see the outline of a little foot. 

Joshua hiccups, his hand resting over the imprint. Kiwi always knows when Joshua needs a reminder of their presence the most. 

He misses Jihoon something fierce, but the vacuuming void that had punctured his heart for so long was not as loud or draining as it once had been. They may not be walking the same path, but Joshua believes that he’s going to be alright, too. 

Because he’s not alone.

**Author's Note:**

> this is my first foray back into fanfiction in years but this idea just kept poking at my brain so i sat down and wrote it. even though i'm nervous to the point where i can't even post this publicly adssafdafja.
> 
> this is actually more of a prequel/setup to a more full-fleshed fic idea i have that will be set five-six years in the future.
> 
> and of course the title comes from the translated lyrics of simple. i couldn't resist. nor could i stop myself from having joshua refer to the baby as kiwi. 
> 
> he decided not to find out the sex beforehand, thus why i kept to the gender neutral terms when referring to lil kiwi. 
> 
> please let me know if this was any good and if you'd be interested in seeing more of this verse. i appreciate any feedback. 
> 
> much love and light. don't forget to stay hydrated. ❤


End file.
